SEABROOK — The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which will decide whether to extend the operating license of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant until 2050, has rejected a call by nuclear safety groups to delay that process based on the results of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation into the nuclear disaster that hit Japan earlier this year.

Shir Haberman

SEABROOK — The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which will decide whether to extend the operating license of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant until 2050, has rejected a call by nuclear safety groups to delay that process based on the results of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation into the nuclear disaster that hit Japan earlier this year.

The board, an arm of the NRC, called the request by interveners in the license extension process "premature" and "speculation."

The fact this decision was made the day after the NRC instructed its staff to implement some of the recommendations made in the report about the Japanese disaster "without delay" has confused and angered the director of at least one of those groups.

"The key question from this ruling should be 'who's doing the speculating here?'" said Doug Bogen, executive director of Seacoast Anti-Pollution League. "ASLB claims our petition is 'premature,' yet it is this board, on behalf of the NRC, that chose to take up the license extension proposal 20 years ahead of the current license expiration."

The petition was filed earlier this year by SAPL, along with the Maine-based Friends of the Coast and New England Coalition; Beyond Nuclear in Washington, D.C.; and the New Hampshire Sierra Club. It contends the environmental report submitted by the local nuclear plant's operator, NextEra Energy Seabrook, "fails to satisfy the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act because it does not address the new and significant environmental implications of the findings and recommendations raised by the NRC's Fukushima Task Force Report (that reviewed the causes of the March disaster in Japan)."

The ASLB rejected this contention in an order dated Oct. 19, indicating the petition is based on "speculation built on speculation."

"We do not know which, if any, of the ... task force recommendations the commission might ultimately adopt," the board members wrote in Wednesday's ruling. "Furthermore, we do not know the implications for the Seabrook LRA (License Renewal Application) of whatever recommendations might be adopted, and the interveners provide no guidance."

On Tuesday, the NRC instructed its technical staff to come up with the specifics of changes to nuclear plant regulations based on the recommendations of the task force.

"The five-member presidentially appointed commission responsible for leading the NRC has voted on recommendations that should be implemented 'without delay' in response to the Japanese reactor events," NRC Public Affairs Officer Neil Sheehan wrote in a memo to the press that referenced the decision. "Areas to be the top priorities include: seismic and flood hazard re-evaluations, station blackout (loss of off-site power and on-site emergency power) regulatory actions, assessments to ensure there are reliable hardened vents for the Mark I and II containments, and spent fuel pool instrumentation."

Used reactor fuel, which is highly radioactive, is stored in large pools of water at U.S. nuclear power plants. At least one spent fuel pool was severely damaged at the Fukushima nuclear plant, resulting in the release of radioactive material.

Bogen questioned what he sees as a disconnect between the ASLB's rejection of the request to delay the decision on whether to extend the license for Seabrook Station as premature and speculative until all the implications of the Japanese disaster for U.S. nuclear plants are known, and the NRC's directive to implement the recommendations of the task force that studied that disaster.

"At the risk of speculating further, we expect that the safety issues raised by Fukushima will be determined by the NRC to be relevant sometime after they have issued a renewed license for Seabrook, which, by then, will be a moot issue," Bogen said. "So it goes, in the surreal and reality-challenged world of nuclear regulation."

In response, Sheehan said there were two reasons the ASLB rejected delaying the Seabrook license extension process. "The commission and the ASLB operate independently," the NRC public affairs officer said. "The ASLB would have had no idea of the commission's vote (to enact the Fukushima report recommendations)."

Sheehan added that part of the reason the ASLB rejected the request was because the interveners failed to show how implementation of those recommendations would change things at Seabrook Station.

"That information has to be presented specifically to the board," he said.

Seabrook Station remained offline Wednesday, reaching a 15-day shutdown caused by one of two main feed pumps that supply water to the reactor.

"The plant operated as it was designed to do and shut down after the problem with the pump was recognized," said NextEra Energy Seabrook spokesman Alan Griffith. "You need the two pumps and one shut down."

Griffith said the plant would supply no further details on the incident because of competitive issues. He noted that giving specifics could allow electrical supply competitors to gain an advantage.

"I can only say that a series of work is necessary and that we have not completed that work," he said.

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